Study links liquor stores and bars to shooting risk

A shooting victim is aided by emergency personnel near a store where liquor is sold at 79th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago. (Eric Clark, for the Chicago Tribune)

Chicagoans near a liquor store or bar on the city's South or West sides are up to roughly 500 times more likely to be shot than other people in the neighborhood, according to an abstract of a study released Wednesday by Northwestern University.

Though violent crime is a persistent issue in some distressed neighborhoods, Dr. Marie Crandall says there is a link between a troubled neighborhood resident's proximity to a liquor retailer and the risk of becoming a victim of gun violence.

Crandall, an associate professor of surgery at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine and a trauma surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said she expects the study's conclusions to be controversial.

But Crandall said the data could drive broader discussionsabout how easy access to alcohol may affect urban neighborhoods already plagued by poverty, crime and a lack of easy access to nutritious food. A common thought is that liquor retailers in high-risk neighborhoods are prone to violent crime, but there has previouslybeen little quantitative evidence to support it.

Crandall was scheduled to present an abstract of her findings Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, a national trauma surgeon's conference in San Francisco.

The study found that gun violence rates near liquor stores in Chicago's southern and western portions stand in stark contrast with the rest of the city. Crandall found no clear link between liquor retailers and gun violence in more affluent areas but said clear risks are apparent in more impoverished areas such as Austin, Woodlawn, Roseland and Englewood.

The study's results are drawn from a complex statistical analysis of gunshot wound victims and census and liquor retailer data from 1999 to 2009.

A difference in liquor-related gunshot risk rates between the city's troubled neighborhoods and more affluent onespersists even after accounting for factors such as high unemployment rates, educational status, lower value of owner-occupied buildings and high incidence of single heads of household.

"If being close to a liquor store had nothing to do with (gunshot risk rates), we would not have so dramatic of an association," Crandall said.

Community members say Crandall's research simply reflects a widely known reality: The corner store is often a high-traffic spot on the South and West sides, and that can lead to drug and gang activity, and thus more violence.

"I think those of us that have been working in these communities … would not be surprised to discover that as its main conclusion," said Rami Nashashibi, head of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network.

What's more challenging is a clear solution. Simply closing stores is difficult in neighborhoods where the corner mini-mart is more than a liquor store — it's a stop for an after-school snack, groceries or, in areas swathed with vacant lots, a sort of social hall.

Crandall says another idea would be replacing liquor stores with better food stores.

One group of Muslim store owners in Englewood has been pushing for just that.

"As you can see, the area is desolated," said Shamar Hemphill, a young organizer with the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. Residents, he said, "rely on the corner stores."

Yassin, though, doesn't sell alcohol. He and the other members of the group of Arab-owned stores believe selling liquor, in addition to being prohibited by their religion,encourages trouble and that promoting healthier eating could make their neighborhood safer.

"There's more options for clothes and cellphones, but not enough options for healthy foods," Yassin said during a tour of his shop. The Jordanian stocks juice and sodas, oatmeal, some organic produce when he can. He hopes to install a cooler for meats and perhaps improve the lighting.

"The store is not big enough, really," he says. "But it's for the neighborhood."

The factors that led to the neighborhood liquor store being a hub for criminal activity did not surface overnight, Nashashibi said.

"We have to create a different face, if we want to create different communities," Hemphill said. "Nobody said it's easy, but there are corner stores that are ready and willing to work. They're willing to change their business."